She had high hopes of going one step further this year but ran into a blizzard of aggressive shot-making from Lucic-Baroni.

"She started to hit the ball very strong at the beginning of the match," said Halep.

"So she was better than me today and I just have to take this situation, handle it, and just go forward."

A final count of 27 winners to five in the Croat's favour told just how she was able to dominate on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

She goes on to face French 29th seed Alize Cornet, 14 years after she lost to the American Jennifer Capriati at the same stage.

Comeback queen

Lucic-Baroni was named the WTA comeback player of 2014, a year in which she beat Venus Williams in Quebec to claim her first singles title in 16 years, four months - the longest gap between titles in WTA history.

"When I saw the draw and I saw who I was playing second round, I knew it was going to be really tough," said Lucic-Baroni.

"I was going to have to play a great match again and sort of back up what I did at the US Open. I know I played really well. I have been working really hard, and I knew today I had to play some great tennis. I was ready for it."

The win over Halep in New York last September took Lucic-Baroni into the last 16 of a Slam for the first time since she reached the Wimbledon semi-finals as a 17-year-old in 1999, eventually losing to Germany's Steffi Graf.

"At the US Open was the first time in a really long time that I've had a really good result like that, so I was extremely emotional," she added.